A development expert, Dr Otive Igbuzor, has advised the Federal Government to give priority to four sectors in budget implementation to transform the lives of citizens and enhance sustainable development.
Igbuzor, Executive Director of the African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.He noted that citizens are complaining that health and education were not among the top three priorities in the 2018 budget.
“We have always consistently advocated that if you want to budget to impact life of ordinary citizens, you must give priority to four sectors – infrastructure, agriculture, education and health.
“You have seen from the 2018 budget presentation, the only one that comes top is infrastructure; there is higher allocation to security, understandably because without peace there cannot be development.
“I think there is still room for improvement in terms of increase budgetary allocation to education and health,’’ he said.
Igbuzor, however, commended the National Assembly for putting over N55 billion for the implementation of the National Health Act, which was an increase allocation to the health sector.
“We have to do the percentage allocated to health later but the percentage of allocation to education, for instance is not up to 10 per cent.
“There are countries in the world like Ethiopia that budgets about 30 per cent to education.
“If you look at the level of education in Nigeria, it is clear that there is a need for improved allocation to education and health,’’ he said.
The executive director expressed concern over the delay in the passage of budget for the past three years.
Igbuzor said both the executive and legislature had recognised the problem of budget delay and had been working to address it.
“I think the way to deal with it is by law and that is why part of the constitutional amendment that is going on is to make it clear.
“It is to make it clear that the President must submit the budget before September and the Legislators must approve before December.
“Once that law comes into force, then everybody must work within the ambits,’’ he said.
According to him, the delay in the budget for the period has been because there is no law to address it.
“Once there is no rule, then there is no offence so there is a law and the law actually says that you can continue spending on recurrent expenditure for six months.
“They have not breached any law so when that amendment passes through, then we will revert back to January to December calendar,’’ said the expert.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari while signing the 2018 Appropriation Bill into law promised to work with the National Assembly to improving the budgeting process and restore the country to the January-December fiscal cycle.
Buhari also commended the National Assembly for working on the enactment of an Organic Budget Law to improve the efficiency of the nation’s budgetary process.
